Donate Life Foundation
St Louis, MO · EIN 46-3570900. Reported 69 grants totalling $12.0M to 31 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Donate Life Foundation, the IRS classifies it under health care rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE E86) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 31 distinct organizations, with 35% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 72% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $95,154. Half of what it reported fell between $35,000 and $100,000; the smallest was $8,500 and the largest $4,145,979. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-America Transplant Services | St Louis, MO | $4,145,979 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Washington University | St Louis, MO | $2,582,721 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| St Louis University | Saint Louis, MO | $1,381,496 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| St Louis Bereavement Center for Young People | Saint Louis, MO | $408,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Family Hospice of Belleville Area | Belleville, IL | $407,746 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Lost and Found | Springfield, MO | $406,800 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| CASA De Salud | Saint Louis, MO | $404,076 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Curators of the University of Missouri Special Tr | Columbia, MO | $399,612 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Eye Thrive | Saint Louis, MO | $272,800 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| University of Missouri St Louis | St Louis, MO | $272,775 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Baptist Memorial Hospital - Jonesboro Inc | Memphis, TN | $258,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Infant Loss Resources Inc | Saint Louis, MO | $243,550 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Gift of Life Inc | Overland Park, KS | $202,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Cardinal Glennon Childrens Foundation | Saint Louis, MO | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Southeast Missouri State University | Cape Girardeau, MO | $74,600 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Community Health Comission of Missouri | Saint Louis, MO | $70,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Nea Baptist Health System Inc | Memphis, TN | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Southern Illinois University Foundation | Carbondale, IL | $49,290 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Gateway Region Young Mens Christian Association | Saint Louis, MO | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Lester E Cox Medical Center | Springfield, MO | $35,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Power 4 Stl Inc | Saint Louis, MO | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of Arkansas Foundation Inc | Fayetteville, AR | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| St Louis Community College Foundation | Bridgeton, MO | $26,100 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Mercy Hospital Springfield | Springfield, MO | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Ssm Heatlh St Marys | Richmond Hgts, MO | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital | Saint Louis, MO | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation | Memphis, TN | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Emory University | Atlanta, GA | $12,871 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Missouri State University Foundation | Springfield, MO | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Phoenix Society Inc | Kentwood, MI | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Southwestern Illinois College Foundation | Belleville, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
16 of 31 (52%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Washington University
CLINICAL INNOVATION, RESEARCH SUPPORT - St Louis University
SCIENCE-CLIN INNV & INVESTIGATOR - University of Missouri Curators
SCIENCE-CLINICAL INNVOVATION - Eye Thrive
COMMUNITY-PREVENTIVE HEALTH - Gateway Regional YMCA
SUPPORT DIABETES AND HYPERTENSION PROGRAMS - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Foundation
SUPPORT PATIENT NAVIGATION SERVICES IN NORTHEAST ARKANSAS
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 23 of 31 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 19 | $1,814,934 | $34,975 |
| 2022 | 18 | $5,666,135 | $74,331 |
| 2023 | 15 | $2,141,645 | $98,800 |
| 2024 | 17 | $2,390,702 | $100,000 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
91% of its giving went to organizations in Missouri. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $95,154 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Missouri.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Donate Life Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 17 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 1110 Highlands Plaza Dr East 100, St Louis, MO, 63110.
EIN 46-3570900 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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